Ten super fund chief investment officers earned more than their chief executive in 2013/2014.
Six of these earned more than their chief executive before bonuses, with the remaining four surpassing the chief executive because of bonuses.
Jim Christensen, chief investment officer at Telstra Super, out earned his chief executive by $551,515, the greatest difference in all the funds surveyed. Chief executive Chris Davies was paid $320,154 for an eight month period while Christensen received $871,669*.
The six funds where the chief investment officer earned more before bonuses were: Australian Super; BT Super; First State Super; Sunsuper; Telstra Super; and TWU Super. Those that earned more after bonuses include: Equip Super; QSuper; Rio Tinto Staff Super Fund; and UniSuper.
This salary data is part of the inaugural Investment Magazine Salary Survey, where the pay of chief executives, chief investment officers, and chairs of the 50 largest institutional investors were tabled, using data from publically available sources.
The data reveals Rosemary Vilgan, QSuper, as the highest paid industry chief executive at $1,054,862, while the lowest was Peter Murphy, Christian Super, with $252,451. A number of retail fund chief executives were remunerated even less than Murphy as the running of the funds formed only part of their duties.
Below is a graph showing all disclosed chief executive remuneration compared against the funds under management (FUM).
The 44 industry funds with a chief executive had a:
Mean remuneration of $461,799
Median remuneration of $444,612
Below is a graph showing all disclosed chief investment officer remuneration compared against the funds FUM.
The 36 industry funds with a chief investment officer had a:
Mean remuneration of $409,238
Median remuneration of $310,864
Below is a graph showing all disclosed chair remuneration compared against the funds FUM.
The 49 funds which disclosed their chair’s remuneration have a:
Mean remuneration of $102,733
Median remuneration of $85,023
The disclosed remuneration of chief executives totalled $20.3 million, chief investment officers $14.7 million and chairs $5 million.
Occasionally a positon was filled for only part of the year, such as Michael Wyrsch, chief investment officer Vision Super, which explains some of the lower outliers. Further detail and analysis is revealed in the February edition of Investment Magazine.
* An earlier version of this article did not state that Chris Davies’ stated salary only covered an eight month period in the financial year 2013/14.
Differences in pay seem to be larger than the pay-off in performance – no correlation between the two. It certainly puts paid to the myth that it is a lower-paying industry.